Method for Controlling Medicine Compounding in an Automatic Medicine Packing Machine

ABSTRACT

A method for controlling medicine compounding in an automatic medicine packing machine includes steps of extracting medicine information wherein medicine code and medicine information are extracted from prescription data that is input to the automatic medicine packing machine from a server computer, analyzing medicine code consistency wherein whether the medicine code extracted and medicine code of a reference medicine that is preset coincide is compared and analyzed, analyzing medicine information consistency wherein when the medicines codes are found not to coincide, whether the medicine information extracted and the medicine information of the reference medicine coincide is compared and analyzed, and compounding medicine when the medicine information coincide.

CLAIMING FOREIGN PRIORITY

The applicant claims and requests a foreign priority, through the Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property, based on patent applications filed in the Republic of Korea (South Korea) with the filing date of Nov. 13, 2006 with the patent application number 10-2006-0111796 by the applicant, the contents of which are incorporated by reference into this disclosure as if fully set forth herein.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

The present invention relates to an automatic medicine packing machine. More particularly, the present invention relates to controlling method for medicine compounding in an automatic medicine packing machine, in which matters regarding a medicine having multiple identification codes are handled effectively.

Generally, an automatic medicine packing machine continuously packs medicine that is dispensed per dose. Construction and operation of an automatic medicine packing machine are explained referring to FIG. 3. The automatic medicine packing machine includes a plurality of tablet cassettes 100 that are received on a shelf in the upper part of the machine, a manual tablet dispenser 200 that is provided in the lower part, a hopper 300 that is provided below the tablet cassettes 100 and the tablet dispenser 200, a printing unit 400, and a sealing unit 500 that moves and seals packing envelopes on which labels are printed by the printing unit 400.

The operation of the tablet cassette 100, the printing unit 400, and the sealing unit 500 is controlled by a controller C that is provided inside the machine. The controller C controls the tablet cassette 100, the printing unit 400, and the sealing unit 500 to continuously compound medicine per dose according to prescription data provided by a server S that is provided outside the machine, and a bundle of sealed envelopes is created.

The manual tablet dispenser 200 allows a user to manually prepare medicine that is not contained in the tablet cassette 100 and include the medicine in the packing envelopes.

FIG. 4 shows that a medicine bundle 18, which is created by an automatic medicine packing machine, includes a plurality of packing envelopes 16, each of which contains medicine for one dose, a header packet 10 and a footer packet 22, which are vacant packing envelopes and provided on the leading end and trailing end of the bundle, respectively.

A bar code 20 and additional print data 14 are printed on the front surface of the packing envelope 16. On the upper part of the header packet, data for patient and packed medicine are printed. On the lower part of the header packet, a warning message 12 for the medicine is printed. Data for patient and packed medicine are printed on the footer packet as well.

The prior art has following disadvantages. When the medicine code in the prescription data that is input to the machine is different from the medicine code that is preset in the controller, that is the medicine code for the medicine contained in the tablet cassette, it is impossible to prepare and pack the medicine, even though the medicine is the same while the medicine codes are different. In this case, separate setting operation is required to make the medicine codes consistent, thereby increasing inconvenience and delaying preparation and packing of medicines. Also, it is not possible to prepare a medicine when the amounts are different for the same medicine, thereby requiring manual preparation. In addition, when a medicine inside a tablet cassette is exhausted during preparation or packing and supplement of the medicine is required, it is impossible or takes substantial time to supplement. Resultant delay is a big problem especially medicines required in emergency.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The present invention contrives to solve the disadvantages of the prior art.

An objective of the invention is to provide a method for controlling medicine compounding in an automatic medicine packing machine that facilitates compounding of a medicine that has different medicine codes, prevents stopping due to inconsistency of medicine codes, and prevents inconvenience in usage and delay of compounding.

Another objective of the invention is to provide a method for controlling medicine compounding in an automatic medicine packing machine that facilitates checking inconsistency by a user by displaying medicines that have inconsistent medicine codes and improves precision against inconsistency.

Still another objective of the invention is to provide a method for controlling medicine compounding in an automatic medicine packing machine that eliminates manual compounding due to a medicine that has different amounts and increases compounding speed.

Still another objective of the invention is to provide a method for controlling medicine compounding in an automatic medicine packing machine that continues compounding and excludes medicine that is impossible or takes long time to supplement, thereby preventing delay of medicine compounding.

In order to achieve the above objective, the present invention provides a method for controlling medicine compounding in an automatic medicine packing machine that comprises steps of extracting medicine information wherein medicine code and medicine information are extracted from prescription data that is input to the automatic medicine packing machine from a server computer, analyzing medicine code consistency wherein whether the medicine code extracted and medicine code of a reference medicine that is preset coincide is compared and analyzed, analyzing medicine information consistency wherein when the medicines codes are found not to coincide, whether the medicine information extracted and the medicine information of the reference medicine coincide is compared and analyzed, and compounding medicine when the medicine information coincide.

The method further comprises step of displaying the same medicine after the step of analyzing medicine information consistency, in which the extracted medicine code and the reference medicine code, the medicine information of which coincide, are displayed on a display.

The method further comprises after the step of analyzing medicine information steps of analyzing the same medicine, in which whether there is a medicine that has the same medicine name among medicines that have inconsistent medicine information is analyzed, when the medicine information are found not to coincide, analyzing accord possibility wherein whether the amounts may be accorded by changing the amount of the reference medicine for medicines having the same medicine name is analyzed when there is a medicine that have the same medicine name, and modifying prescription data wherein the prescription data is modified by adjusting dispensing amount of the reference medicine so that the amounts are accorded when it is found that accord is possible.

The method further comprises after the step of modifying prescription data step of displaying medicine that can be accorded, wherein the medicine information of the medicine according to the prescription data and the reference medicine that have the same medicine name and are possible to make the amount consistent are displayed.

The method further comprises after the step of analyzing accord possibility step of displaying manual compounding, wherein the medicine that cannot be accorded is displayed, whereby a user recognizes the displayed medicine that cannot be compounded automatically.

The method further comprises after the step of compounding medicine step of deciding exclusion of medicine, wherein whether to supplement medicine or to continue compounding excluding the medicine is decided when a tablet supplement signal is input during operating the tablet cassette according to the prescription data.

The method further comprises after the step of deciding exclusion of medicine step of printing excluded medicine, wherein the medicine name and amount for the excluded medicine are printed on a packing envelope for the medicine when medicine exclusion has been decided.

In the step of printing excluded medicine, the medicine name and amount of the excluded medicine are printed on an outer surface of the packing envelope into which the excluded medicine should be contained. Alternatively, in the step of printing excluded medicine, the medicine name and amount of the excluded medicine are printed on an outer surface of a vacant packing envelope that is provided at the header of packing envelope bundles that contain the excluded medicine.

The advantages of the present invention are: (1) compounding of the same medicine having different medicine codes are facilitated, stopping of compounding due to inconsistent medicine codes is prevented, inconvenience in usage due to medicine code inconsistency is eliminated, delay in compounding is prevented; (2) checking inconsistency by a user is facilitated by displaying medicines that have inconsistent medicine codes and precision against inconsistency is improved thereby performing compounding and packing of medicine more precisely; (3) manual compounding due to a medicine that has different amounts is not needed and compounding speed is substantially increased by reduction of manual compounding; and (4) compounding is continued excluding medicine that is impossible or takes long time to supplement, thereby preventing delay of medicine compounding.

Although the present invention is briefly summarized, the fuller understanding of the invention can be obtained by the following drawings, detailed description and appended claims.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

These and other features, aspects and advantages of the present invention will become better understood with reference to the accompanying drawings, wherein:

FIG. 1 is a flow diagram showing a method for controlling medicine compounding in an automatic medicine packing machine according to the present invention;

FIG. 2 is another flow diagram for the method;

FIG. 3 is an elevation view showing an automatic medicine packing machine; and

FIG. 4 is a plan view showing a bundle of medicine packing envelopes.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

FIG. 1 shows a method for controlling medicine compounding in an automatic medicine packing machine. The method includes step S10 of extracting medicine information that extracts medicine information from prescription data, step S20 of analyzing medicine code consistency that compares and analyzes whether medicine codes coincide, step S30 of analyzing medicine information consistency that compares and analyzes whether medicine information coincide when the medicines codes do not coincide, step S50 of compounding medicine when the medicine information coincide.

In step S10, medicine code and medicine information for each medicine are extracted from prescription data that is input from a server computer. The prescription data is input to a controller of the packing machine from the server computer, and the controller extracts the medicine code and medicine information from the input prescription data. The medicine code is a unique number for a medicine assigned by a user. The medicine information refers to name, kind, capacity, etc. for the medicine.

In step S20, the medicine code extracted in S10 and a reference medicine code that is preset are compared and analyzed and consistency of them is checked. The reference medicine code refers to a medicine that is assigned to a medicine that is contained in a tablet cassette of the automatic medicine packing machine. Therefore, the reference medicine refers to the medicine contained in the tablet cassette, and the reference medicine information refers to information for the medicine received in the tablet cassette. The controller analyzes whether the extracted medicine code and the reference medicine code coincide.

When the medicine codes are found to coincide with the analysis, compounding medicine according to the prescription data is performed since the medicine that coincides with the prescription data exists in the tablet cassette. The process of compounding medicine includes driving the tablet cassette that contains the medicine corresponding to the medicine recorded in the prescription data, dispensing of medicine by the tablet cassette and collecting dispensed medicine per dose. The medicine collected in this way is discharged downward and packed with packing envelopes.

In step S30, when the medicine codes are found not to coincide in step S20, whether the medicine information for the extracted medicine code and the medicine information for the reference medicine code are compared and analyzed to check consistency. This step enables finding a medicine that has different medicine codes but has the same medicine information and compounding of the medicine. Medicine codes may be set differently by different hospitals or users for the same medicine. The present invention enables direct compounding of such medicine without separate changing of the medicine code.

In step S50, compounding according to the prescription data is performed by driving the tablet cassette when the medicine is found to have the same medicine information in step S30.

The method further comprises step S31 of displaying the same medicine after step S30, in which the extracted medicine code and the reference medicine code, the medicine information of which coincide, are displayed on a display. In this step, a user can recognize the same medicine having different medicine codes and subsequent operations including changing medicine codes are facilitated. As the display, a monitor for the server computer or a monitor installed on the automatic medicine packing machine may be used.

The method further comprises step S40 of analyzing the same medicine that analyzes whether there is a medicine that has the same medicine name among medicines that have inconsistent medicine information, step S41 of analyzing accord possibility that analyzes whether the amounts may be accorded for medicines having the same medicine name, and step S43 of modifying prescription data that modifies the prescription data when it is found that accord is possible so that the amounts are accorded.

Step S40 follows step S30. When the medicine information are found not to coincide with the analysis of medicine information, whether there is a medicine, the name of which coincides with the name of the reference medicine, among the medicines that have inconsistent medicine information is compared and analyzed in step S40. This step finds a medicine that has the same name with the reference medicine among medicines that have inconsistent medicine codes and inconsistent medicine information. In other words, this step finds a medicine that has the same name but has different amounts and therefore the medicine information does not coincide with the reference medicine. The amount of medicine is an amount of the medicine that is used for one dose. For example, when the amount of medicine extracted from the prescription data is 1 aspirin tablet of 400 mg but there is no 400 mg weight tablet of aspirin in the tablet cassette, it is analyzed that whether there is aspirin among the reference medicines contained in the tablet cassettes.

In step S41, when a medicine that has the same medicine name is found in step S40, whether making the same amount by changing the number of reference medicine is possible is analyzed. For example, when the amount of medicine extracted from the prescription data is 1 tablet of aspirin with 400 mg weight, and the reference medicine found, that is the medicine contained in the tablet cassette is aspirin tablet with 200 mg weight, it is decided that accord is possible since two 200 mg tablets correspond to one 400 mg tablet. On the other hand, if the reference medicine is a 300 mg tablet, it is decided that accord is not possible since changing dispensing amount from the table cassette can not correspond to a 400 mg tablet.

In step S43, when accord is found possible in step S41, the prescription data is modified so that the dispensing amount of the reference medicine is adjusted to be the same with the amount of the medicine that has inconsistent amount. For example, if one dose amount of the medicine extracted from the prescription data is one 400 mg aspirin tablet and the table cassette contains 200 mg aspirin tablets, the prescription data is modified into two 200 mg aspirin tablets so that the amount of medicine becomes consistent.

The method further comprises step S44 of displaying medicine that can be accorded, after step S43, which displays medicine information of the medicine and the reference medicine that have the same medicine name and are possible to make the amount consistent. This step enables a user to recognize medicine information of the medicine and the reference medicine that have the same medicine name and are possible to make the amount consistent, and prevents erroneous misjudgment with the different number of tablets in a visual check of packed medicine.

The method further comprises step S42 of displaying manual compounding, after step S41, which displays medicine that cannot be accorded, so that the medicine should be compounded manually. A user recognizes the displayed medicine that cannot be compounded by operating the table cassette. The user compounds the medicine manually with a manual dispensing device.

The method further comprises step S60 of deciding exclusion of medicine, after step S50, which decides whether to supplement tablets or to continue compounding excluding the medicine when a tablet supplement signal is input during operating the tablet cassette according to the prescription data. The decision is made in a way that if supplementation is not possible or takes substantial time, compounding is continued excluding the medicine that requires supplementation.

The method further comprises step S61 of printing excluded medicine after step S60, which prints medicine name and amount for the excluded medicine on the packing envelope when medicine exclusion has been decided. The printing facilitates adding the excluded medicine later. The name and amount of excluded medicine are printed on the packing envelope into which the excluded medicine should be contained, or on a vacant packing envelope that is provided at the header of packing envelope bundles that should contain the excluded medicine. In other words, the data are printed on the outer surface of the packing envelope that contains one dose or on the header packet, thereby facilitating addition of the excluded medicine.

FIG. 2 shows the flow of the method of the present invention. In step S10, when the automatic medicine packing machine is operating and the prescription data is input from the server computer to the controller, the controller extracts the medicine code and medicine information for the medicine recorded in the prescription data.

In step S20, whether the extracted medicine code and the medicine code of the reference medicine coincide is determined by comparing them.

When the medicine codes are found to coincide, the medicine is compounded according to the prescription data in step S50. On the other hand, if the medicine codes are found not to coincide, whether the medicine information extracted from the prescription data and the medicine information of the reference medicine coincide is analyzed in step S30. When the analyzed result indicates that the medicine information coincide while the medicine codes do not coincide, the data regarding the medicine are displayed so that the user can recognize in step S31, and the process moves to step S50, in which the medicine is compounded according to the prescription data.

When the analyzed result indicates that both the medicine codes and the medicine information do not coincide, whether there is a medicine that has the same name is analyzed from the medicine information in step S40. When the analyzed result finds no medicine that has the same name, the medicine of the prescription data can not be compounded automatically with the tablet cassette and manual compounding is displayed in step S42, so that the user compounds the medicine manually with the manual dispensing device, and the process returns to the beginning and receives another prescription data.

When the analyzed result finds a medicine that has the same medicine name even though it has not the same medicine code or the medicine information, whether according the amount is possible is decided in step S41.

If it is decided that according the amount is not possible, the medicine of the prescription data can not be compounded automatically with the tablet cassette and manual compounding is displayed in step S42, so that the user compounds the medicine manually with the manual dispensing device, and the process returns to the beginning and receives another prescription data.

If it is decided that according the amount is possible, the prescription data is modified in step S43, so that the amount of medicine extracted from the prescription data coincides with the dispensing amount from the tablet cassette, and the process goes to step S50, in which medicine is compounded according to the modified prescription data.

When medicine contained in the table cassette is exhausted during compounding medicine according to the modified prescription data, medicine supplement signal is input to the controller in step S51. In step S60, the controller decides whether to exclude the medicine that is in shortage and to continue compounding under the state that the table cassette is stopped from operating. The decision may be performed by setting by a user in which a particular medicine should be excluded when the medicine is signaled to require supplement, or by direct input of medicine exclusion signal by a user.

When the medicine is supplemented by with decision of the controller, the automatic medicine packing machine waits until a user supplements the medicine in step S62, and continues and completes compounding in step S70 after the medicine is supplemented.

When the medicine requiring supplement is excluded and compounding is performed instantly by the decision of the controller, the list of excluded medicine is printed in step S61, and compounding is performed and completed excluding the medicine requiring supplement in step S70.

While the invention has been shown and described with reference to different embodiments thereof, it will be appreciated by those skilled in the art that variations in form, detail, compositions and operation may be made without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention as defined by the accompanying claims. 

1. A method for controlling medicine compounding in an automatic medicine packing machine comprising steps of: a) extracting medicine information wherein medicine code and medicine information are extracted from prescription data that is input to the automatic medicine packing machine from a server computer; b) analyzing medicine code consistency wherein whether the medicine code extracted and medicine code of a reference medicine that is preset coincide is compared and analyzed; c) analyzing medicine information consistency wherein when the medicines codes are found not to coincide, whether the medicine information extracted and the medicine information of the reference medicine coincide is compared and analyzed; and d) compounding medicine when the medicine information coincide.
 2. The method of claim 1, further comprising step of displaying the same medicine after the step of analyzing medicine information consistency, in which the extracted medicine code and the reference medicine code, the medicine information of which coincide, are displayed on a display.
 3. The method of claim 1, further comprising after the step of analyzing medicine information steps of: a) analyzing the same medicine, in which whether there is a medicine that has the same medicine name among medicines that have inconsistent medicine information is analyzed, when the medicine information are found not to coincide; b) analyzing accord possibility wherein whether the amounts may be accorded by changing the amount of the reference medicine for medicines having the same medicine name is analyzed when there is a medicine that have the same medicine name; and c) modifying prescription data wherein the prescription data is modified by adjusting dispensing amount of the reference medicine so that the amounts are accorded when it is found that accord is possible.
 4. The method of claim 3, further comprising after the step of modifying prescription data step of displaying medicine that can be accorded, wherein the medicine information of the medicine according to the prescription data and the reference medicine that have the same medicine name and are possible to make the amount consistent are displayed.
 5. The method of claim 3, further comprising after the step of analyzing accord possibility step of displaying manual compounding, wherein the medicine that cannot be accorded is displayed, whereby a user recognizes the displayed medicine that cannot be compounded automatically.
 6. The method of claim 1, further comprising after the step of compounding medicine step of deciding exclusion of medicine, wherein whether to supplement medicine or to continue compounding excluding the medicine is decided when a tablet supplement signal input during operating the tablet cassette according to the prescription data.
 7. The method of claim 6, further comprising after the step of deciding exclusion of medicine step of printing excluded medicine, wherein the medicine name and amount for the excluded medicine are printed on a packing envelope for the medicine when medicine exclusion has been decided.
 8. The method of claim 7, wherein in the step of printing excluded medicine, the medicine name and amount of the excluded medicine are printed on an outer surface of the packing envelope into which the excluded medicine should be contained.
 9. The method of claim 7, wherein in the step of printing excluded medicine, the medicine name and amount of the excluded medicine are printed on an outer surface of a vacant packing envelope that is provided at the header of packing envelope bundles that contain the excluded medicine. 